NBA analysts have few, if any, words to spare for the Portland Trail Blazers. Coming off a 36-win season with speculative, if notable, moves during the summer, the Blazers are expected to fall somewhere north of the league’s lottery winners, south of serious playoffs participation. But that’s not stopping David Thorpe of Truehoop from spending paragraphs on the Pacific Northwest’s finest. In a series covering the prospects of all 30 NBA franchises [subscription required], Thorpe puts Portland in a unique category: not among the tankers, but still a year away from making the postseason. The Blazers rank above the Nets, Hornets, Jazz, and Wizards, but below everyone else in the league.

Explaining the reasoning behind his analysis, Thorpe first points at Portland’s offensive weaknesses:

It

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